Sunday, 13 December 2009

Friday, 12 June 2009

Home education in English politics: The story so far..

19th January 2009:

Amid a flurry of reported insinuations about child abuse, the Badman Review of Elective Home Education was announced.

11th June 2009:

It took six months to reach its conclusion, finding that – despite the evidence of thousands of home educators’ responses to the contrary, a draconian system of licensing and inspection was required for families who choose to educate their children at home. On the same day the Badman Report was published, the DCSF began a public consultation into its proposals -

19th October 2009:

- which closed four months later.

Meanwhile,

by making requests under the Freedom of Information Act, home educators discovered that the suggested link between home education and child abuse was entirely spurious. (FOI requests from home educators were later blocked by DCSF on the grounds of their online ‘harassment and vilification’ of Mr Badman, an accusation which they strongly deny.)

Rewind 10 days..

9th October 2009:

The Commons Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families began a short inquiry into the conduct of the Badman Review, with a line-up of supposedly ‘expert’ witnesses that were actually anything but.

The conclusions of that inquiry were published on 16th December 2009 and can now be viewed here. That's almost a *month* after...

19th November 2009:

The Queen's Speech included a bill for changes in the law regarding children, schools and families. The worst elements of Badman’s proposals are included in Clause 26 (Schedule 1). Related impact assessments were woefully inadequate and glossed over the likely impact on children with Special Educational Needs.

23rd November 2009:

Yet another petition was raised against the proposals on the No.10 website.

8th December 2009:

A record number of parliamentary petitions against the proposals were presented to the House of Commons, although some home educators disputed their wording.

11th January 2010:

The CSF bill had its second hearing in the House of Commons. Michael Gove (Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families) said, amongst other things:

"I do not know of any home educating parent who supports these provisions. I, like almost every Member of this House, have been inundated by correspondence, telephone calls and e-mails from, and had private meetings with, home educating parents who are deeply concerned about this legislation, because it undermines the right of a family who have broken no laws and placed no child in danger to decide what is in the interests of their child."

(For this reason alone, I voted CONSERVATIVE at the General Election on May 6th.)

Also on the 11th January 2010

The results of that consultation were finally published. Responses are overwhelmingly against both registration and regulation.

6th April 2010:

The home education elements of the CSF bill were withdrawn in the wash-up, due to a lack of agreement amongst the parties. Ed Balls, however, pledged to:

"..campaign to ensure that this Government is returned and that these measures do make it on the statute book in the first session of the new Parliament,"

6th May 2010:

The Conservatives won the most seats, though not a clear majority. Nevertheless, Michael Gove was made Education Secretary and even the DCSF has been mercifully dismantled. Our current position is very well set out here.

Reaction to the Badman Report: June 2009

"Parents could be banned from educating children at home in a move branded a 'very bad day for civil liberties'" - The Telegraph, 11th June 2009

"Graham Badman and Ed Balls declare war on Home Educators" - Blogdial, 11th June 2009

"It really is no longer up to the parent any more to decide on the actual suitability of the form and content, and they therefore cannot be held responsible when that state-determined education fails their child." - Dare To Know, 11th June 2009

"Badman and Balls have stitched us up" - Renegade Parent, 11th June 2009

"What a surprise, Ed Balls accepting the recommendation to exercise more influence and control over home and family life!" - Phil Walker, 11th June 2009

"The release of the Badman Review into Home Education today is yet another example of this government's controlling, heavy handed approach to society." - UKIP Chairman Paul Nuttall MEP, 11th June 2009

"Frankly it is plain that this Government are very keen to make sure families lose their basic rights." - Mum6Kids, 11th June 2009

"If home educators can be treated this way, who will be next?" - Dani at the Greenhouse, 11th June 2009

"Those of us who take a largely autonomous approach take the ‘rights’ of our children far more seriously than the state is ever going to." - Firebird, 11th June 2009

"Revolutions have been started over this sort of thing." - Bishop Hill, 11th June 2009

"Under the plans, parents will by law have to register their child once a year with their local council, and provide a statement of what and how they intend to teach their children over the coming year. An inspector from the local authorities – a headteacher, social worker or child psychologist – will visit the family once a year to assess whether the education promised by the parents is being delivered." - Guardian, 11th June 2009

"Understandably, home educators are reeling at the prospect of justifying themselves to a state that so often fails both in education and welfare." - Mark Field, Conservative MP, 12th June 2009

"Our whole approach to education is based on our children’s intrinsic desire to learn. They are in the driving seat. If they want to make plans (which they often do, actually, being the children of parents who love a plan!) then they do." - Allie at the Greenhouse, 12th June 2009

"Autonomous learning will not be permitted (the reviewer, Badman, does not believe it is successful and discredits all available research that reveals just how successful the autonomous approach is)." - Embracing Life, 12th June 2009

"The review lacks intellectual rigour, independence or impartiality." - Prof. Bruce Stafford and Mrs Maire Stafford, 12th June 2009

"Essentially following the government trend to deal with people outside the established legal process by shifting the rules so that you become guilty of breaking a law you have no defence against." - Working Dad, 13th June 2009

"LPUK will oppose changes to HE. Parents must be free to educate children as they see fit, they are yours not the State's." - Ian Parker-Joseph, leader of the Libertarian Party, 12th June 2009

"This Labour government has been especially bad at dealing with difference, and its latest stance against home schooling is indicative of this lack of tolerance and understanding." - Philip Salter, Adam Smith Institute, 13th June 2009

"This is our all-powerful State's angry response to a growing rebellion, by mothers and fathers who are sick of seeing their children bullied, neglected and miseducated in the state education system, and rightly think they can do a better job." - Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday, 14th June 2009

"There is something very rotten stalking the corridors of power." - Amy and Elaine, 14th June 2009

"If you tolerate this, then your children will be next." - ATS, 14th June 2009

"An English Man’s Home Is His Castle. But not any more thanks to Mr Badman, Mr Balls & the Labour Government." - Merry, 14th June 2009

"People who elect not to send their children to school are troubling to the rest of us. They offend our sense of the way things should be: after all, we went to school – and while they may not have been the happiest days of our lives, going to class made us into the people we are today." - Daisy Goodwin, Sunday Times, 14th June 2009

"The Badman Report on the Review of Elective Home Education in England is a travesty of report writing in that its conclusion appears to have been decided before pen touched paper, but worst of all, it is yet another attack on the basic freedoms that we have taken for granted for so long." - Alfred the Ordinary, 14th June 2009

"I wonder if the government has plans to monitor and inspect all those parents with preschool children too? Or school children during school holidays?" - The Chicken Shed, 15th June 2009

"Clearly, I need to have done lesson structure 17, attainment target 3.5, assessment 4, key stage 3, time allotted 40 minutes, test assessment due date 12/10/09." - The inimitable GRIT, 15th June 2009

"The review recognises the diversity of home educators, but fails to take this in to account in its ‘one size fits all’ recommendations." - Emma, 15th June 2009

"I find it outrageous that home educators should be singled out for inspection in ways that the state would never allow for its own charges." - Lord Lucas, 15th June 2009

"By only using point 7 Mr Badman has, in my opinion, taken part of the Submission out of its well balanced context, to give readers the impression that the Church of England is against Elective Home Education. That's more than Bad. That's Evil." - Mieke, 18th June 2009

The end of autonomous learning?

Reaction to review launch: January 2009

"The biggest threat to home education that the UK has ever experienced"...

The review

The petition

The six questions (Deadline for responses: Friday 20 February 2009)

The sixty questions for Local Authorities (deadline: 6th February 2009)

Get your daily call to action from the Facebook group

"Parents Express Outrage and Disgust at Latest Government Attack on Families." - AHEd's press release

"It's theft of children from families. The state wants to control what childhood is." - Mike Fortune Wood on YouTube

"We.. the inf.. We don’t have the evidence there statistically, no." - NSPCC spokesman on the Jeremy Vine Show, Radio 2

"Very many of the LA questions are leading questions - and have no actual basis in any law or understanding of home education in the UK today." - Lotusbirther: Independent consultation?

"I suspect there is another agenda here." - Allie at the Greenhouse

"The sad fact is that the majority of LAs don't understand their duties and the powers they have had since 1944." - Carlotta's draft response

"This is about allegations of abuse that have no evidence to back it up" - Annkrozeika

"Review of state schooling system announced amidst growing concerns for pupil safety" - A great piece of [shame it's only] satire

"Hitler outlawed home education for just that reason, he understood that to control the minds of the people you have to get children away from their parents as early as possible" - Firebird

"Baroness Delyth Morgan said home schooling could be masking a range of evils including sexual exploitation and domestic servitude." - Daily Mail

"Children attending school are more likely to suffer abuse and neglect than those educated at home" - Telegraph

"It is also, for many, precisely the reason they removed their children from school in the first place – because they believed their children weren't receiving the education they needed." - Guardian: Do we need yet another inquiry into home education?

"As you can see, Nanny hates it when she doesn't have a direct input into the upbringing of children; she immediately cries "abuse" at anyone who seeks to distance their family from the state." - Nanny Knows Best: A nation of snoopers

"When our education and care systems fail to educate or safeguard children on a regular basis, why is more money being spent investigating parents who choose to invest time and energy in their own children?" - Merry: Ask me why I home educate?

"If someone is of a mind to abuse their children, I'm afraid they will do it whether they attend school or not - and this would be on top on the abuse often experienced in school if they are attending." - Debs: A simple life

"This whole consultation document betrays a lack of appreciation for the law, a knee-jerk reaction to headline-grabbing scaremongering, a lack of appreciation for and understanding of the motivations, aspirations and culture of the minority community under attack (home educators), a covert attempt by LAs to increase their powers over the private lives of that minority group, and a shocking waste of public funds." - Emma: Children are people

"How can the government ensure that chronically or terminally ill children achieve health? When the government cannot prevent recession how can it ensure that children or adults achieve economic well being? When its own schools and especially its children’s homes fail spectacularly to ensure these outcomes for many of the children entrusted to them, how can it ensure them for all children?" - Maire, Staffordshire

"On the 19th January, an obscure person called Delyth Morgan levelled what I regard as an astonishing smear against people who educate their children at home." - Peter Hitchens, Daily Mail

"These people really are out to get you and your kind (in this case you have a real reason to be paranoid). They will do it slowly - a regulation here, a quality control there (and will blame the EU along the way). But within 10 years you will not have freedom in education. Instead your children will be corralled into the glorious socialist dumbing-down system that churns out cannon fodder for failed industrial policies, a new generation of dependents for the socialist welfare state." - Huw Sayer, Telegraph

"That - apparently - to the UK government is acceptable. No cause for concern. Kids in overcrowded classes, in falling down schools with anarchistic teaching and control methods is acceptable. No national enquiry into potential abuse there. - ATS

"Local authorities already have powers to act if they are concerned. S. 437 gives them the right to insist on information about home education if there are any doubts, and SAOs give them access to the child - once they have an SAO in force and the child is in school, they can see them. If there are cases that LAs are worried about they should use existing powers not whine about needing new ones." - Jill Fisher

"The irony is that if local authorities are given swingeing powers, it is the children who will suffer, and the children's education." - Jane Lowe

"Seen from across the Atlantic it looks like these public consultations about home education in UK are a never ending story... Maybe they don't get the expected answers?" - Augustin Moga

"This is why we have yet another inquiry into home education because, as home educators, we are opting out of the mental spoon feeding, we are thinking for ourselves, and thus we are a section of society that scares a large homogeneous organisation like the government rigid." - Mamacrow

"Once the NSPCC starts getting involved with actual prevention then they cross the line into becoming Big Brother, or at least of encouraging facilitating the creation of a Big Brother state. At this point they start to become a danger to a liberal society." - Bishop Hill

"In-house Social Services and Local Authority publications have carried letters and articles criticising home education, and reports are that memos have been circulated advising on how the Local Authorities consultation should be answered. This will have undue influence over the results of that consultation." - Facebook group press release

"As such we believe that DCSF has broken Article 12 of the UNCRC, which states: 'Governments are to ensure that children have the right to express freely their views and to take account of children's views. Children have the right to be heard in any legal or administrative matters that affect them.' " - Facebook group's letter to CRAE

"Fake charities, among which I am disappointed to suspect I must now number the NSPCC, are instruments of government policy and patronage. They are used to "astroturf" (create fake "grass roots" support for) government policies." - Tom Paine

"Now the home ed consultation reminds me why we home educate in the first place. Because I consider the primary school system in the UK as promoting an anti education culture. I'm prepared to defend that. It's a system that forgot about a child's interest, enthusiasm, energy, play, excitement, delight, spontaneity. And why? Because these qualities cannot be controlled, monitored, and tested." - Grit

"If the Government wants to ‘guarantee all children their right to a balanced education in a safe, healthy environment’ as Delyth Morgan says ... it needs to start with the demoralised, and in some schools ineffective and/or dangerous, state system." - mmSeason

"One angry mother asked: 'Why the need for a fourth consultation in three years relating to Elective Home Education? Is there a hidden agenda which the Government are just going to keep consulting about until they finally get the answer they want? Why this red herring of forced marriages being a reason for "reining in"?' " - Sarah Ebner, Times

"If (as I suspect) all of this is driven by fear that they could be seen to be failing in their duty to "safeguard" children because of their lack of powers to monitor home educated children, then the best way to counter it is to show that granting them increased powers would increase their liability to safeguard children without correspondingly increasing their effectiveness to do so." - Adele

"I will not go deeply into the Five Outcomes of the ECM here, apart from saying that I find that whole document an appalling bit of propaganda, that aims to appeal to people's good intentions. Who in their right mind would want to say they do NOT want these five outcomes for their children? Shockingly missing from the whole ECM programme is the word 'happiness'." - Mieke

"I’ve never seen, in ten years, children coming to harm." - Tony Mooney on Radio 4's PM programme

"DJ Petal, spokesperson from the NSPEC, states that it has come to their attention via well appointed rumour and official gossip mongering rolled out from London" - Organised Pauper on NewsBiscuit

"I would never allow this man into my house either. How many parents want a hostile presence in their home with their children?" - Mum6Kids, on Tony Mooney

My review-based posts:

DSCF press release: freedom to home educate under government attack *again*

Facebook: you are invited to join a group

The five outcomes

Transcript of Radio 2 Jeremy Vine show section on Home Education, 20th January 2009

Stroking snakes, fraternising with ferrets..

Mike Fortune-Wood speaks about the latest UK attack on Home-Education

AHEd Press Release

The review questions (non-LA version)

Review links and quotes

NSPCC and government: hand in glove?

Writing to my MP and wow, the formidable Facebook group!

One observation

"We would therefore recommend that DCSF review the legislation pertaining to children educated at home.."

What kind of person have they chosen to conduct this *independent review* then?

Business and industry

Our own review

My letter to my MP

Facebook group press release

Facebook group's letter to CRAE

Growing a sidebar, joining the dots

The petition, and DCSF replies

Action

Today is the Local Authorities' deadline

"Make a positive contribution" and the "Path to success"

Boiling frogs, but making them achieve economic wellbeing first

Be healthy

Enjoy and achieve

And finally: stay safe

The ECM tangled web: how legitimate is it?

A closer look at the Local Authority position

ECM: Did it really all come from Laming?

The vultures are circling

In the light of this - a poll

A précis on our specific problems with the five outcomes. And a brief note about Professor Heppell.

My answers to the review questions

So, what can the review do for you?

Local Authority monitoring and why we hate it

ECM: Brave New World

AHEd press release: PERSECUTION OF MINORITY GROUP IS "ABUSE OF PUBLIC FUNDS"

Two more questions. Where did *they* come from?

Freedom keeps us busy

The Team Around the Child

The real team around the child

Hey, Vijay

Transcript of Radio 4's PM interview with Shena Deuchars and Tony Mooney

Letter from AHEd to NSPCC Chief Executive

A very long post in which I try to find out whether ECM is a monster or not. It is.

AHEd press release: NSPCC should withdraw from government review into home education.

Blindsided? 21st Century Schools: A World-Class Education for Every Child / A School Report Card: consultation document

ECM schedule: 2009

'At risk of poor outcomes'

CME: did this slip under the radar?

A poll about 'fending for themselves', and other news.

The world *is* changing

2020: compliance techniques

That fifth outcome and the NSPCC

NSPCC part 1: anti HE?

Mr Badman: a bad man?

NSPCC part 2: anti family?

Support, strings, other stuff and seeds

The rules of engagement

NSPCC Part 3: anti child?

Worcestershire, Tasmania and the land of Notschool: "Curiouser and curiouser," said Alice.

Autodidacts, Tasmanian devils and many-headed hydra. The whole menagerie.

"Maintaining the status quo is out of the question." Time for some blue skies thinking.

I just went for a blog walk and ended up at Becta

"One side of A4, on my desk, first thing Monday morning." "Please Sir, sorry Sir, the dog ate it.."

"They can't do this. It's in contravention of article 16 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child:

Mr Badman, Professor Heppell, bullying, Notschool and Becta

Twelve good men and true?

EO's bombshell

EO's bombshell: the reaction

EO's bombshell: the document

Parents' declaration

It's a bit like asking a fox to review the chickens, isn't it? "Yum."

EO's bombshell again

A valiant hero

Becta.. Capita... other things ending in 'a'.. (and 'o', and 'net' etc.) - Part 1

Becta.. Capita... other things ending in 'a'.. (and 'o', and 'net' etc.) - Part 2

EO's bombshell: questions and answers



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